Nippy tetra housing question

[Sawyer]

Which tetras are the nippiest and can I house nippy tetras with other nippy tetras? Like serpaes with bleeding hearts, or will they nip each others long fins?

 

[amazonadam]

Maybe black skirts if you dont have a large school.

 

[user_name]

If you keep schools of the same size fish and amount of fish in each school then you will probobly not have any nipping. Increase the numbers of smaller less nippy fish if you don't want any nipping...

 

[tanker]

Nippy tetras and barbs too (IMO) would rather chase each other. Given enough of them they will chase each other rather then other fishes. Look at my stock===no problem.

 

[excuzzzeme]

I find Blackskirt Tetras, tiger barbs, Serpae tetras, and Giant Danios all to be of equal aggression. Most of the time they are con-specific but also will strike out at other just because they want to.

 

[svf]

Silvertips have been the nippiest tetras that I have kept thusfar.

As far as keeping different kinds together, I prefer to have a larger school of the same kind. The schooling behavior is more interesting that way.

 

[Sparkxx]

I find tiger barbs like to taste other fishes fins more often than any other fish
They think everything that moves which has a tail is for them

 

[lookit]

The meanest/nippiest fish I've ever had were Von Rio (or Flame) tetras. Maybe I didn't have enough to keep them in check, but I couldn't keep anything else in the tank with them, and all they did was chase each other. The next nippiest fish were my sepae tetras. I had a school of six. They were really lovely, but about once a month, I'd come in to work and find big nips out of everyone's fins. Oddly enough, though, they never once bothered the otos that shared their tank.

 

[XanAvaloni]

:iagree: with lookit. Von Rios are bullies of the first order. Never saw them actually nip in the sense of fin-biting but they are whip-fast to charge in formation at anybody at any time. Had to move them out of a tank with platies and in with some juvie angelfish just to get them to the level of fair competition.

however if you enjoy livebearers and do not wish to be pestered with excess fry, get yourself some Von Rios. I think the average lifespan of platy fry in that tank was about 1.63 miliseconds. You could always tell which female was dropping as there would be a death squad of Von Rios overhead. I hereby propose be renamed "Von Richthofen" tetras as they attack from above and are deadly.

 

[JK47]

Agree 100% with nippy or "aggressive" tetras being kept in larger groups. The more you have it limits issuues conspecifically (amonst the species only) In my 120 gallon, I have a group of 20 Hyphessobrycon colombianus (Columbian tetra). Everything I have read they are very nippy, once got the group was 6+ they chilled the same day. Lovely fish.